


guard them from my grave

by girlbookwrm



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Fix-It, Gen, LOOK EVERYONE IS HAPPY NOW AND THAT'S JUST CANON BABEY, canon compliance doesn't have to suck, except it ISN'T, except it isn't that either?, it's a patch-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-23 18:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18707614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlbookwrm/pseuds/girlbookwrm
Summary: Bucky clears his throat. “So.” He sits, before his knees can decide to give out. “Do you ever get tired of being right?”





	guard them from my grave

**Author's Note:**

> If you hated the Endgame Ending, I hope this helps you make peace with it.
> 
> If you loved the Endgame Ending, this is what happened right after, I don't make the rules, it's canon babey.
> 
> If you can't make sense of the Endgame Ending, this is how Steve explains it to Bucky.

_Let it hurt, let the awful song be heard_  
_Blue bird, I know you’re beat, baby_  
_But your secret is safe with me 'cause if secrets were like saints_  
_Keep my body from the fire, higher, **guard them from my grave**_  
_Your secret is safe with me, and if secrets were like seeds_  
_When I'm laying on the marble, marble flowers you have made_

_\- “No Plan” by Hozier, 2018_

 

 

 

Bucky stands by the bench and stares out at the lake for just a moment before he can make himself look.

He can’t say he was _ready_ to see Steve like this, but two seconds ago he hadn’t expected to see Steve again, _period,_ so it’s better than he thought. At least he found peace, Bucky tells himself. At least he’s not dead in a ditch somewhere. At least he came back and let you see that he’s happy, he’s okay. That’s -- that ain’t nothing, that’s -- Christ.

The sight of Steve's _face,_ looking like _that--_

And now something must be showing on Bucky’s face, because Steve--

There’s a minute flinch, then his jaw sets, his lips thin, his brows come together. There, in among all the new wrinkles, are two old ones that Bucky recognizes. The little double vertical furrows between his brows, deeper now, still asymmetrical. Bucky stares. Steve doesn’t look away, because Steve _never_ looks away, and this is _Steve._

 _This_ is Steve.

Bucky clears his throat. “So.” He sits, before his knees can decide to give out. “Do you ever get tired of being right?”

Because Steve had said _I’m coming back,_ and Bucky had thought _no you’re not._

That was just ten minutes ago.

For Bucky.

Steve’s old face cracks in a smile, eyes all but vanishing in wrinkles. He regards Bucky a moment. “I’ve had time to get used to it.”

Bucky scoffs and shakes his head. Apparently Steve never stops being a smartass. That, at least, isn’t surprising. Bucky doesn’t know how to feel about the rest of it yet, but he also doesn’t really know what happened. How is Steve _here?_ If he didn't come through the Quantum Tunnel, then…

“So did you come the slow way?” But if Steve _had_ come the slow way from 1945, that would’ve been eighty years, and he shouldn’t look _this_ old, unless he’s been deserumed or-- Christ. He  _does_ look smaller.  _Has_ he been deserumed?

Just when Bucky’s starting to get worried, Steve sighs, looks rueful, looks down at himself. “No,” he admits. “I didn’t come the slow way. I’d’a had to keep my head down to get here and that’s…” He frowns again. Shakes his head.

Coming the slow way, step by step through time, the only path back to here -- back to _this_ Bucky -- would be to lie so low that history didn’t notice he was there. And yeah, he could’ve _watched_ . Maybe he could’ve seen, _really_ seen that he did the best he could the first time. But it would also mean no changing things, no seeing Peggy. He’d have had to ignore bombs dropping, and Hydra killing Howard, and the fact that Bucky Barnes was out there, getting turned into the Winter Soldier. To get back to _this_ Bucky, _his_ Bucky, Steve would have had to lie under a rock somewhere, and do nothing.

Steve’s not great at watching and doing nothing.

“I couldn’t do that,” Steve confesses. He looks up and meets Bucky’s eyes. “Not even for you. Sorry.”

“I’ll be honest, Buddy. That really doesn’t surprise me.” Still, it unknots something tight and worried in Bucky’s chest to hear it. Steve’s still got the serum, and he’s still _Steve._ Bucky figured the temptation to go back would be too much to resist. Or -- not _go back_ but try to _start over,_ to _try again,_ and do it _right_ , whatever that looks like in Steve’s head. What’s the point of starting over if you can’t do anything different? So he couldn’t have come the slow way. Which means…

“Did you get your dance?” Bucky asks, meaning _did you at least do one nice thing for yourself while you were there?_

Steve ducks his head. “Somewhere in the multiverse,” he says. It isn’t an answer, but he’s smiling in a way that feels like an answer.

“I’m happy for ya, Pal,” Bucky says, and means it.

“Thank you.”

The moment lands between them -- a beat of silence. Bucky wonders. Wherever this Steve is from, are he and Peggy still together? Did Steve have to go to her funeral, alone, again?

Did they have kids?

That’s too painful to look at directly, so Bucky changes the subject. “Still doesn’t explain why you didn’t come through the Quantum Tunnel.”

Steve sucks in a breath. He says “Well...” and something in his face makes Bucky feel the weight of years between them like a gulf. “I tried to, I really did, but…” He sighs, shakes his head ruefully. “It’s a long story.”

He looks so _tired_ that Bucky can’t quite bear to press further. Not yet. “So you’ve come back from the future then? Your future?” Bucky’s brow knits up. “Is it okay for you to even be here? Ain’t you gonna create another branch in the multiverse or--”

Something very strange happens on Steve’s face, and it takes Bucky a second to recognize -- that’s 1936 Steve looking out at him. Determined not to be a burden. When he speaks, he’s calm, but Bucky is wary now. He knows it’s a front.

“I can go back, anytime,” Steve says. “There’s a quantum tunnel open there, in the future, or… the past -- my past?” His wizened face bunches up, looking a little irritated and confused. He shakes his head. “I talked to Strange, before I left. He says I can stay here, if you’re alright with it. He can’t tell if it’s actually a loop -- it shouldn’t be a loop, loops shouldn’t be possible, apparently -- but whatever it is, it seems to be stable. The branches are all…” He makes a vague clipping motion in the air, then lets his hand fall. “It’s confusing as hell, Buck,” he says, sounding exhausted.

“You’re telling me,” Bucky says.

“Turns out the multiverse doesn’t much care if we understand it or not.” He gives Bucky a _what are ya gonna do_ face. “The point is, if we’re careful, you and me and Sam, I can stay here, safely, until...” Steve swallows.

 _Until he dies,_ Bucky’s brain informs him, like a punch under the ribs. A tiny part of him screams _god, Steve, why are you doing this to me?_ But he ignored that voice in 1943 when Steve kept trying to join the army. He ignored that voice when Steve turned up in Bucharest. He’s good at ignoring that voice. He can do this.

“But if you don’t _want_ me here,” Steve is saying. “I can go back.”

“Hey,” Bucky says, offended on his own behalf -- an instant remedy to any self-pity. “You really think I’d send you back if you don’t wanna go?”

“I know I’m... not the same now,” Steve starts.

“Fuck off,” Bucky says gently. “I wasn’t the same after Azzano. I wasn’t the same after fuckin’ Hydra, and you stood by me then. I’m not going anywhere and I’m _not_ sending you away.” He shakes his head, makes himself smile. “All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be okay. It’s good to see that you are.” He swallows back the swell of feeling, the sadness cresting under his surface, and says: “But I bet you got people to get back to. You don’t gotta be here for me, I’ll be -- I’ll be _fine.”_

Steve looks over at Bucky with a kindly, knowing twinkle in his eyes. He leans in, very slightly, and says: “It ain’t just about you and me, Pal.”

Then Steve looks out at the lake, or -- no, Bucky realizes. He looks out at the _shore._ Sam is sitting there, a ways off, with the shield in his lap. He said he’d give Steve and Bucky a minute of privacy, but he’s taking a minute for himself too, Bucky thinks. With the shield. With the weight of it. It’s Sam’s burden to bear, now.

“This world needs Captain America,” Steve says, in his old, creaky voice. “And Captain America needs his shield, so. I had to come here, now, to make sure Sam has what he needs. But, uh...” He blinks, and the brief twinkle is gone. He looks smaller now. Age will do that to you, Bucky supposes. He’s almost as small as he was before the serum, Bucky would guess. But that might just be the way he’s hunching his shoulders in. Steve looks down at his old hands, where they’re clasped between his knees. “You gotta know, Buck. Whatever _you_ decide, _I’ll_ be fine too.”

Bucky frowns: at the odd phrasing, and the peculiar set to Steve’s shoulders and jaw. “What do you mean by that?”

Steve doesn’t answer. But his mouth turns down at the corners just the same way it always has when he’s about to start --

Bucky gets a sinking feeling in his gut. “Why are you here, _now?”_ he asks, meaning _now_ for Steve. He gets why Steve came back to this moment. He’s wondering why Steve _left_ the one he was _in._

Steve takes a shaky breath in. “I’m here because I promised you that you wouldn’t have to live without me, ever again. And--” his voice has gone thready, thin “--because you promised me that I wouldn’t have to live without you, either.”

It hits Bucky in waves: shock after shock of hot and cold realization. All the feelings he's been holding back suddenly bursting free, released by his sudden  _understanding._

Steve isn’t coming from _his_ future, he’s coming from _their_ future. But before that can hit Bucky properly and sink in, he lands at the station of --

If Steve’s _here,_ and he wants to _stay,_ then wherever Steve came from--

There’s no Bucky there.

“Oh,” Bucky says. It’s breathless, this sound that comes out of him without his say-so.

The cracked open look on Steve’s face confirms it. That’s a Steve that Bucky has never seen before -- a Steve from a world with no Bucky in it. “But I ain’t gonna hold you to that, I know it’s a lot, I know, it’s--”

 _“Fuck off,”_ Bucky says again, which is -- poor choice of words probably. _“Fuck off_ with your ‘I ain’t gonna hold you to that.’ I haven’t broken a--” his chest feels tight, and _fast,_ somehow. “--a promise to you since--” his vision is blurring “--since nineteen-fuckin-thirty-- _fuck--”_

“Bucky are you crying?” Steve says, sounding panicked all of a sudden, and maybe more than a little teary himself.

 _“Fuck you,_ of _course_ I’m fucking crying, you telling me you came from _our_ future?”

Steve stares at him, agog. “What the hell other future would I come from, Buck?” Steve looks genuinely confused now. Still weepy, but also confused. And then his confusion clears. “You thought I left you behind and just came back here to -- what, prove you wrong?”

“I don’t know?” Bucky says, aware that he sounds a little shrill. “Maybe?”

“I would _never--”_ Steve starts. “You thought I could be _happy--_ you thought I could say it was a _beautiful life_ if _you weren’t in it?”_ Steve sounds downright offended now. “Bucky, that’s the _dumbest fucking thing--_ I would _never_ hurt you like that, I--”

“I know! I just--” Bucky sucks in a breath, tries to get control of himself, fails. “Christ. I _know,_ I just didn’t want to let myself _believe._ Fuck. Are you telling me.”

“Bucky--”

“Hang on a second,” Bucky says, scrubbing at his eyes. “Are you telling me. That right now, you’re here, but there’s a younger version of you--” he waves in the vague direction of _out there_ “--somewhere else too?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Somewhere else,” he adds, more cagily. “Kind of.”

“Why can’t I go get you now?” Bucky asks immediately. “I mean I know you’re _here_ but the _other_ you. The _younger_ you. Why can’t I--”

Steve’s already shaking his head. “There’s stuff I still gotta do out there. Stuff you gotta do. Stuff _Sam’s_ gotta do, and I don’t want to be the guy standing in his way. I’ll do whatever it takes to make his job easier. Even if that means sitting down and shutting up.”

“Hey,” Bucky says, still a little teary. “You never sit down and shut up for _me.”_

“I guess I must like him better,” Steve says, the little shit. And it hits Bucky again that this is Steve, this is _Steve,_ but there’s another Steve _out there_ somewhere and he’s _alone right now_ and the huge feeling swells up in his chest again and--

“But hey,” Steve hurries to add. “I’m fine! The younger me, out there. I’ll be fine! Look, I’m _here_ so you know I’ll be fine. You just gotta hold position for now. I’ll tell you when it’s time to go get…” Steve grimaces. “...me.”

“Fuck.” Bucky covers his face. “This is the most batshit bonkers conversation we’ve ever had and man that is... That is sayin’ something.”

Steve chuckles softly, and a hand tentatively lands on Bucky’s shoulder. “It’s not the most batshit bonkers conversation we ever _will_ have, if that makes you feel better.”

“It does not,” Bucky enunciates. He sighs. He scrubs the tears from his face as best he can. More come to take their place. He hiccups. “Shit.”

Steve is giving him a _take your time_ kind of look.

Bucky takes a couple of deep breaths. He swallows a hiccup, which hurts, but at least now he’s stopped hysterically crying long enough to maybe get a full sentence out. “You’re telling me,” he says, deliberately. “That you and me not only... make it, but I’m not-- I’m not--" Fuck, there go his full sentences again. "I’m not gonna have to-- to--”

Steve takes his hands. How are Steve’s old fucking _crone_ hands steadier than _Bucky’s_ right now? How can that be? And where the fuck did that wedding band come from? Whose is it?

“You’re not gonna outlive me,” Steve says, so gentle and soft and suddenly Bucky knows -- just _knows,_ that at some point in the future, he’s gonna turn to Steve, _his_ Steve, who will be _this_ Steve one day, maybe, and he’s gonna lean in and whisper a secret:

_Remember when we were scared kids? I was going to war and I was so scared they were gonna make me a killer. I was even more scared I was gonna get killed out there and you were gonna be all alone. But you know what scared me more than any of that? You know what always scared me most of all? Outliving you._

He’d always known it would happen. He was braced for it. Whether it was pneumonia or bullets or a fucking ray gun, Steve was always gonna die first. And it wasn’t like Bucky wanted _Steve_ to have to live without _him_ either. For Steve, Bucky was ready to walk straight into his worst fucking nightmare but now--

But _now--_

But. Is it the right thing? It seems too good. Too good a thing for Bucky to have. He takes a breath. He wipes his eyes. What would Steve do? If Steve were sitting here, where Bucky is sitting, what would Steve say?

There are tears at the corners of Steve's eyes now, nearly lost among the wrinkles, catching on his still-so-fucking-long eyelashes. Bucky wants to brush them away, but…

“So can I stay?” Steve asks, unsteadily.

“Shit,” Bucky says, melting a little. “Of course you can stay.” Now that he _knows_ he wants that more than _anything_ , but… “But you gotta know.” He’s gotta say it, right? It’s what Steve would say, right? “You gotta know I’m not _him,_ Pal.” If Steve is living in denial -- that ain’t healthy, is it? Shit. One of them should ask Sam, maybe? Or a real doctor, Sam doesn’t know as much about _normal_ as he thinks he does. “I ain’t him,” Bucky repeats, firmly.

Steve shakes his head. He puts his hands on Bucky’s cheeks, warm and steady. They don’t feel any different, really. A little colder, maybe. Like the fires in him are burning low now.

“You’re not him _yet,”_ Steve says, with the kind of conviction that could stop an army in its tracks.

Bucky chokes out a laugh. “Asshole. This could be an alternate reality for you, you don’t _know_ that I ever _will_ be him.”

“Yeah I do,” Steve answers.

Bucky’s eyes blur again. “Christ, don’t you ever get tired of being right?”

Steve’s face crumples completely. “Yeah, I do,” he says, voice breaking.

That’s when Bucky gives in, and hugs him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who's wondering if this is, in fact, part of [The Hundred Year Playlist](https://archiveofourown.org/series/882387), I have only one thing to say:
> 
> bitch it might be


End file.
